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The former head of a Mexican vigilante group that challenged the power of the drug cartels has been killed in the state of Michoacán. Hipólito Mora, a lime farmer, and at least three of his security guards were killed as they were driving in his hometown, La Ruana. Mexican media say they were shot many times by unknown gunmen, who then set their vehicle on fire. Mr Mora had been part of a self-defence group of civilians who took up arms in 2013 to defend their farms from a criminal gang called the Knights Templar who were charging extortion money from lime and avocado producers in the region. Ioan Grillo is a journalist and author who spoke regularly to Mr Mora for his book called, Gangster Warlords: Drug Dollars, Killing Fields, and the New Politics of Latin America. He told Newsday, Mr Mora successfully toppled the Knights Templar but it came at a cost: “These days you see the vigilante-type people manning checkpoints, you don’t really know if they’re genuine farmers defending their crops or actually drug traffickers themselves…When you bring down one cartel it creates a vacuum so other cartels came in including two other groups, one called the Jalisco New Generation cartel and one bizarrely called the Viagras…(Mr Mora) was critical of both, he was caught in the middle.” (Picture: Shows a framed photo of Hipólito Mora on his coffin. Credit: Ivan Arias / Reuters.)